The €500,000 tournament has attracted several strong national teams, plus the favourites, WR Chess, led by the world No 1, Magnus Carlsen

Dragon Chilling may be an ­unfamiliar chess name, but the squad from China won the gold medals at the World Teams Rapid in Hong Kong. Teams of six include a woman, a ­junior and an amateur who has never achieved a 2000 ­rating. The strong ^­performance by Asian teams at the start highlights a boom in chess, with enthusiasm sparked by successive world ­champions from China (Ding Liren) and India (Gukesh Dommaraju).

The time control for rapid is 15 minutes for the whole game, plus a 10 seconds per move increment from move one; while for blitz it is three minutes plus a two seconds per move increment. There is no repeat of the attempt in London last year to play without increment, which caused chaotic conclusions to several games.

The world No 1’s setback in Oslo and reduced participation coincides with the emergence of a new star

Magnus Carlsen, the world No 1, had his worst tournament result since 2015 last week when the 35-year-old ended up fourth of six in the $178,000 (£133,000) Norway Chess event at Oslo, losing four games out of 10.

There were reasons for his disappointing showing. Previous editions of the event were in distant Stavanger, far from the hometown pressures of Oslo, while Carlsen is the father of a baby son and he arrived at several games seemingly unprepared.

The Russian world title challenger and the controversial American have personal issues but similar ratings, and drew 4-4 with a win apiece and six draws

Ian Nepomniachtchi, who won two Candidates tournaments but then lost world title matches to Magnus Carlsen and Ding Liren, and Hans Niemann, whose controversial 2022 game with Carlsen is the subject of the Netflix documentary Untold: Chess Mates, tied an eight-game series in Belgrade this week with a win apiece and six draws.

Nepo won the first game and Niemann the eighth, after the Russian missed an easy opportunity to win game seven. They played two games a day at a brisk time control of one hour per player plus a 30 seconds per move increment, which Fide calls “Fast Classical”. The event was opened by Serbia’s minister of sport, Zoran Gajic, and the veteran grandmaster Ljubomir Ljubojevic made a ceremonial opening move.

Frenchman scored at Norway Chess despite his heavily protected sprained ankle, and defeated Carlsen for the first time in a classical game

Magnus Carlsen has won the annual Norway Chess elite tournament for six of the past seven years. However, the 35-year-old world No 1 was shocked in Monday’s opening round by Alireza Firouzja, who had finished last at Bucharest the previous week in the Grand Chess Tour event won by Germany’s Vincent Keymer.

The Frenchman, 22, defeated Carlsen for the first time in classical chess despite playing with a sprained ankle, caused by falling off a stage at Bucharest. It was the most high-profile success by a physically injured grandmaster since Tilburg 1985, where England’s Tony Miles shared first prize playing prone from a massage table after injuring his back.

Check it out

UPDATE: Read the answers here

Today’s four puzzles are inspired by chess. (If you haven’t yet watched the recent documentaries on Judit Polgár and Hans Niemann, I recommend them.)

1. Oddities

The winner will qualify for the GB team for the 2027 World Solving Championship, an event where they are often medal contenders

This week’s puzzle is a chance to enter an annual national competition in which Guardian readers ­traditionally perform well and in ­considerable numbers. White in the diagram, ­playing as usual up the board, is to play and checkmate in two moves, against any black defence.

The puzzle is the first stage of the annual Winton British Solving Championship, organised by the British Chess Problem Society and sponsored by the investment ­managers ­Winton. This competition is only open to ­British ­residents and entry is free. To take part, simply send White’s first move by post to Nigel Dennis, Boundary House, 230 Greys Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 1QY, or by email to winton@theproblemist.org.

US grandmaster scored biggest success of his career at the Grand Chess Tour Rapid & Blitz and is close to world top 10

Hans Niemann, the controversial US grandmaster whose game with Magnus Carlsen at the 2022 Sinquefield Cup led to cheating allegations, a $100m lawsuit, an out-of-court settlement, the Netflix documentary Untold: Chess Mates, and a forthcoming book, scored the most important success of his career last weekend.

Niemann, competing as a wildcard, won the $50,000 (£37,400) first prize at the Warsaw Rapid and Blitz in Poland, ahead of the US champion and world No 3, Fabiano Caruana, India’s reigning world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju, and the Candidates winner, Javokhir Sindarov. The event was part of the St Louis-backed Grand Chess Tour, which ends in August and includes the prestigious Sinquefield Cup.

The world No 1 lost to Jorden van Foreest, but squeezed into a tie for first and won the blitz playoff

The world No 1, Magnus Carlsen, made a rare return to classical chess this week at the annual TePe Sigeman tournament in Malmö, Sweden, squeezing through to a blitz playoff in Thursday’s final round after Turkey’s 14-year-old talent Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus blundered fatally in the late stages after reaching a drawn position.

Carlsen tied on 5/7 with India’s Arjun Erigaisi and won the blitz playoff 2-1. This was the final sudden death game.

The teenager crushed Veselin Topalov 5-1 to become the youngest ever 2700-rated grandmaster, after which his coach said his future target was 2900

Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, 14, has become chess’s youngest ever 2700-rated grandmaster, breaking an age record set a decade ago by China’s Wei Yi at 15. The Turkish teenager is already the highest ever rated 12-, 13- and 14-year-old, and the youngest to reach the world top 50. For the moment, his new achievement only shows in the live daily ratings, but will become official when Fide’s monthly list for May is published at the end of the month.

Veselin Topalov was the world No 1 20 years ago and was the Fide world champion. However, the Bulgarian has been largely inactive since he finished seventh of 10 at Norway 2022 and the rust showed in his performance. For Erdogmus, it was his third important match success, after his 4-2 victory against the eight-time Russian champion Peter Svidler and his 3.5-2.5 margin against France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. One of his wins from the 2025 Fide Grand Swiss in Samarkand has been dubbed the “Turkish Immortal” due to its brilliant sacrificial conclusion.

The journey from the Von Neumann to the Niemann affair has much to teach us about the changed landscape of the sport

There really is, it turns out, a true story involving cheating in chess and a vibrating crotch. Only this one is a whodunnit that dates back more than 30 years and was only solved last week.

Imagine the scene at the World Open in Philadelphia in 1993 when a mysterious unrated player with fake dreadlocks and headphones, and with a bulge that vibrates in his trousers, shows up. Now multiply it 100-fold when this unknown amateur, who calls himself John von Neumann after the founder of game theory, draws with a grandmaster, Helgi Ólafsson, in round two.

The Uzbek 20-year-old won first prize unbeaten but his girlfriend, Bibisara Assaubayeva, finished second to the lowest seed in the Women’s Candidates

Javokhir Sindarov finished with a record total in the world championship Candidates in Pegeia, western Cyprus, as the 20-year-old from Uzbekistan won the competition with a record 10/14 total, 1.5 points clear of his nearest rival, Anish Giri. The Women’s Candidates was won by India’s 24-year-old Vaishali Rameshbabu, half a point ahead of Kazakhstan’s Bibisara Assaubayeva, who is also Sindarov’s girlfriend.

Sindarov dominated the field with a controlled display reminiscent of the old Soviet master Mikhail Botvinnik. His pre-game preparation was exceptional, several times accurately predicting what would appear on the board right into the endgame. On the rare occasions when he was under pressure, as in his second game against the world No 3 and US champion, Fabiano Caruana, his defensive technique was precise and assured.

• Uzbek grandmaster wins Candidates with round to spare

• Sindarov, 20, to face India’s Gukesh for world title in fall

Javokhir Sindarov will challenge for Gukesh Dommaraju’s world chess championship this fall after clinching the Candidates tournament with a game to spare on Tuesday afternoon in Cyprus.

The 20-year-old Uzbek grandmaster closed out an emphatic victory in the 14-game double round-robin with a tame 58-move draw playing with the black pieces against Dutch star Anish Giri, moving to 9½ points and leaving the world No 9 two adrift with one round remaining.

Anish Giri won two games in a row to advance into second place, but has little chance of overhauling the leader

Javokhir Sindarov extended his lead at the world championship Candidates in Cyprus on Thursday when the 20-year-old Uzbek grandmaster won for the sixth time at the event to take his overall total to an unbeaten eight points out of 10, two ahead of his closest challenger, the Netherlands No 1, Anish Giri.

India’s Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu had prepared a sharp and complex defence to the Queen’s Gambit with an early push of his g and h pawns, but he blundered at move 22 and Sindarov was able to acquire a queen and several pawns for two ineffective rooks.

The ugly side of chess is pored over in this Netflix documentary, looking at how lurid online gossip led to a lawsuit, conspiracy theories and a bitter rivalry. Sadly, there’s little new here

‘Every conversation I have about chess”, says Hans Niemann, “leads to anal beads.” In any other context that might seem something of a non-sequitur. But in the context of Niemann, it makes a lot of sense. For the uninitiated, Niemann was the chess prodigy accused in 2022 of cheating against world champion Magnus Carlsen – some said by using a vibrating sex toy to direct his play, leading him to a shock (pun intended) victory.

As ridiculous as it sounds – the sort of thing that would be laughed out of the Black Mirror writers’ room – the theory gained ground online, and in the press. This Netflix one-off draws heavily on archive footage ridiculing the incident, featuring everyone from Piers Morgan to Trevor Noah, who quips that, with anal beads, “even if you lose, you still kinda win”.

It was the anal bead theory that caused a global sensation. Now, a new Netflix film tells the tale of two grandmasters, one scandal – and a whole lot of bad blood

Chess Mates (Netflix, Tuesday) has an unsettling early gambit: the face of Piers Morgan, looming via archive footage. “Have you ever used anal beads while playing chess?” Morgan asks down camera, as if prepping an ill-advised phone-in. “Your curiosity is concerning. Maybe you’re personally interested?” shoots back his interviewee, Hans Niemann (above). The minds of chess masters, as glimpsed in this fantastic documentary, are almost as compelling as any back-passage shenanigans on the table.

It’s worth looking up the whole clip, from when Niemann found himself at the centre of a cheating scandal. The 19-year-old had come from nowhere; in a match at the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, he did the impossible and beat the Goat. That’s Norwegian Magnus Carlsen: an undisputed titan who sees lines of play like Neo sees the Matrix, and has held the world No 1 spot, unbroken, since 2011. Suspecting foul play, Carlsen withdrew from the competition. Ever since, suspicion has swirled round his American rival. Which is where the beads enter. So to speak.

Have you been following the big stories in football, cricket, rugby league, boxing, golf, F1, athletics, rowing and chess?

The Uzbek grandmaster has scored 3.5/4, including an impressive victory against the world No 3 and Candidates favourite, Fabiano Caruana

Javokhir Sindarov is already the clear favourite to win the 2026 Candidates in Cyprus and to challenge India’s Gukesh Dommaraju for the world crown after the Uzbek grandmaster, 21, began the tournament with a commanding 3.5/4, including an impressive victory against the pre-tournament favourite and world No 3, Fabiano Caruana. It is the fastest ever start by a player under the format of a double-round Candidates.

Sindarov’s seconds correctly anticipated that Caruana, with the black pieces, might open with the solid Queen’s Gambit Accepted, and prepared accordingly. “I got kind of caught in the opening,” said a subdued Caruana at the post-game press conference. The US champion got into heavy time pressure and after 20 moves was down to 10 minutes to reach move 40, with no per-move increment.

The US legend declined a $25,000 offer from shoe firm Clarks to meet the cream of England’s juniors

The nine-round Reykjavik Open, which began on Wednesday afternoon at the Harpa Conference Centre, is an iconic event. It was first played as an all-play-all in 1964, when Mikhail Tal won, and is close to the Hotel Reykjavik Natura, formerly the Hotel Loftleidir, which featured prominently in the epic Bobby Fischer v Boris Spassky match of 1972.

The top seed in the capacity entry of 422 players is Iran’s Amin Tabatabaei, the only 2700-rated player in the field, with Romania’s Bogdan-Daniel Deac (2655) next, and the veteran Ukrainian Vasyl Ivanchuk (2624) the fourth seed.

The teenager defeated the tournament favourite, Gawain Maroroa Jones, in the final round to secure victory by half a point

Freddy Waldhausen Gordon, a 15-year-old from George Heriot’s school, Edinburgh, came through with a stunning burst to capture the annual British Rapidplay championship in Peterborough with a score of 9.5/11, defeating the top-seeded GM, Gawain Maroroa Jones, in the final round in a must-win game by a checkmating attack where White’s queen and both rooks all invaded Black’s rear rank.

Maroroa Jones was in trouble early in the decisive game, soon had to concede rook for knight, and a second loss of the exchange followed at move 32. At the end, 39 Rxg7+ and 40 Qg8 mate could only be delayed by Black giving up his queen.